Firefighters note rise of house fires without working detectors

On average, one to two minutes is all the time you have to escape a house fire. But a growing problem in our area is people not having working smoke detectors.

"As bad as I hate to say it, we probably see more [fires] without a working smoke detector than we do homes that have a working smoke detector," says Jerry Reed with the Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department.

Just Wednesday night, an elderly Bristol woman was pulled from her burning home and taken to the hospital covered in burns. She's in critical condition.

Several weeks ago on Rosetree Lane in Kingsport, a mother and her young son were killed when their home burned.

Neither house had a working smoke detector.

The Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department showed us just how fast a fire can grow by setting a couch on fire in their burn room. Click here to watch the video.

It only took two minutes for the fire to get out of control. "As you can see the fire has only been burning for just a few seconds and already the smoke detectors are going off," says Reed.

Firefighters say you should have smoke detectors on every floor and outside of each room where you sleep.